Remember, in France it's impolite not to kiss a girl...

...when you meet her the first time...

Today a girl thought I was offending because I didn't peck her on the cheeks when I met her. I am still not really used to this kissing business but looks like if I dont want to be misunderstood I would have to get use to it...

Happy Autumn Festival!

In case you dont know, today is the Traditional chinese festival "Mid Autumn". It's the time when family gather around andtime to eat moon cakes.

Although I am far away but I just want to say:

Happy Autumn festival everyone!

Language Lab

Learning multiple languages are not only encouraged here at UTC, but it's obligatory for the French students. Each student is required to master another language other than French before they can obtain their diploma. To accomodate this requirement there is a language center with resources (Movies, Recordings, Course materials) for all the languages that is offered here at the school.

In order to get the French credit, I will have to spend at least 10 hours at that center learning on my own, whether it's grammar, phonetics, or listening ability.

It's neat, I found the materials are quite helpful. I wonder if there is such place in Waterloo...

I will need to work on my French quite a bit because there will be at least 3 presentations in French through out the term.

Stupid me...

Did something stupid today. I forgot the fact there is a voltage difference here and plugged the battery charger into the wall without a adapter... 2 hours later, no more battery charger...

It's not extremely expensive, but it's just inconvinence and stupidity... How can I forget??

People!

Small Photo Album

Due to many demands, I have uploaded few pictures I have with people in them. haha. I dont know why my pictures consist mostly of landscapes, definitely have to take more photos of ppls though.

That was from two partys at the local bar on campus. Some of them have left France already, but most of them are still here studying.

A miracle and then.. mountain climbing!

Logistics are always a problem in France. In fact for the past week I was having more problems with the courses I have chosen. I discovered that in fact, my timeslot of the tutorial for the numerical analysis course conflicted with the lecture of the International Economics class. In one week, there are many timeslots for the same numerical tutorial, but they were all filled up, so I wasn't able to switch. For couple days I was really worried thatI would have to drop a course just to make my schedule work...which really wasn't the ideal option since I already made compromises for not taking the control course. So I just explained the situation to the professor but I didn't have much hope, after all it's been two weeks into the school term and things are unlikely to change...

Just when hopes are about to run out... This morning I received an email from the professor saying that she had confirmed one student from another section dropped the course! so there fore I was able to switch! This really solved my biggest headache, and I hope things will be alright from now on (keeping my fingers crossed)

One thing that everyone knows but due to whatever reason sometimes never do is asking for help. I found that it's especailly important when you are in a foreign country. Always talk to the professors and let them know your problem, because they will look for solutions for you.


Having a light day tomorrow, tonight I've also met up with Emmanuel (French) and Konrad (German) for some in door climbing action! At the same time I met a cool kid named Peter. He's English but he had been here since 3 yeras old so he speaks perfectly English and French. We were both beginners but Emmanuel and Konrad literally "showed us the ropes". After some initial registration, we are in action!

Oh man it's really a tiring sport. It's even more tiring if you don't do it properly! One is supposed to use arms only as guides and support, not for climbing. Legs are supposed to do all the work. The beginners (like us), tend to rely entirely on the arms to pull up, therefore tiring out very quickly. After 2 hours of climbing, my arms are softer than pasta sticks :P for sure will come back for more though. good source of workout. ( By the end of the term I can probably be bigger than the "Governator"!)

Second trip to Paris

Photos

Last sunday I made my second trip to Paris, this time I had the whole day to explore the city. Me, Stefan (Canadian), Micheal, Konrad, and Martin (German) woke up at 6:30 AM in the morning to catch the first train from Compiegne to Paris.

We were fortunately blessed with good weather for the whole day. The first stop was Chateau Versailles, which was south-west of Paris. It is the cheateau that Louis 14 lived at, and where the Versailles treaty was signed. Pretty significant place.

It was a cheateau surrounded by a giant garden. We didn't really go into the Chateau, just walked around the park. Personally, after seeing the royal Chateau in Belgium, this one is just not as impressive. Perhaps it's more for historical reasons that it's popular.

We went back to center town and tried to decide what to do. We then went to Notre Dame church (I didn't see the hunchback though!) The archtitecture of this building is extremely symetric, even the graphic designs on stained glass are paired up through out the church.

Next we went to Le Sacré Coeur, one of the place in Paris that has the highest elevation in the city. It was the first time that I got a chance to see Paris from a higher ground and the view of the city itself is just breath taking. It's hard to imaging how many houses are actually in the city until you see it. You can of course see the Eiffel Tower from a distance, spotting Notre Dame, and the Arc of Triumph.

It was also the place where a scene of "Amelie" (I corrected it for you Richard) was filmed, when Emily kept on giving Nino hints to find her. It's just felt really unreal that you keep on hearing about this place, keep on seeing this place, and now you are physically at that place. Indeed, moments like that are not easy to find.

We also visited the Moulin Rouge. Crazy prices though, 70 euros for a bottle of wine. Not our kinds of entertainment!

At the end of the day, we found out that going up the Arc of Triumph was free for the day! So we went up there to see the sunset. The best part was The Eiffel tower was flashing like a piece of jewel for about 3 mins. The Champs-Elysees was also very beautiful, extending its way up to the Lourve.

After the second visit to Paris, I still haven't see anything yet. Still need to go visit the museums. But I guess that is just Paris, always makes you want to come back for more.

Photos from Belgium and Holland

Just in case you haven't noticed, I have updated photos from the trip to Belgium and Holland. Enjoy!

Montrer que... (Show that...)

Almost everything single question from the Numerical Analysis course starts with that phrase...which means proofs! I get the feeling that this course will be more of a course emphysis more on the theory than the practical applications. It just means more work cuz in UW the linear algebra course that I've had I don't remember doing this much proofs at all!

It will be a interesting experience for sure.

General Updates for the past week

Finally got connected to internet at the new residence. It's been quite a while since I have updated. so let's back track a little bit.

School has already started here. UTC has lots of courses to choose from so it's not a problem of finding the one that you would be interested in. The problem for me was finding the equivalences. After the research, I have chosen:

Processing of biomedical data
Introduction to Industrial Design
Numerical Methods
Microprocessor, and Interface
International Economy
French

This is the best I can do right now considering I had no warning that the control course was not offered this term. :( and hopefully they will be give the correct course credit when I take them back to Canada.

There was also a biomed imaging course that I really wanted to take, but it conflicted with the numerical methods course...I guess you can never have it all right?

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The system here is rather nice I find. For the first week the time schedule is packed with lectures from EVERY course that is offered this term, no tutorials. If you don't like the courses you have chosen based on the course description, you can change it later; On the same token, if you happen to find one that interests you after attending the introductory lecture, you can add it into your enrollment as well.

Lectures are rather difficult to understand because the profs speaks really fast. I can understand at best may br 60 % of the materials... hopefully things will pick up soon. There are seems to be projects for every course, and oral presentations in the end (all in french!) I dont expect a light term.

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I also found out that in fact the link between Waterloo and Compiegne is quite strong. When I went to UTC to inquire about the equivalent course for Control at the place of course inscription. when I mentioned that I am from the university of Waterloo, a senior professor immediately mentioned that he had actually worked closely with Professor Jernigan for quite a while in the past, and said he had really enjoyed the experience.

I was of course pleasantly surprise to see that Waterloo indeed does have a pretty strong reputation! :D

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Among all the cool ppls I met, there was one french kid David who is young but doing already doing some impressive work. He's only in his first year of university but he has been working on building his own cockpit for quite while now. The cockpit is a full scale structure, including all the control panels, display screens of a real airplane. He's also fully licensed to fly a small plane. He also told me that he really wanted to be a pilot in the future. I am quite impressed that he had already figured out what he wanted to do, considering that I am still poundering on what I wanted with my life...

I found UTC has a lot of courses that are geared towards specific careers. It's a nice feature for the people who have already figured out what they want out of their careers. A different system indeed.

So...It's it not always fun and games...

Today we have started course registrations. Even though I have the courses picked out for this term before coming here, I am surprised that one of the core courses for our program, the Control course is not offered this term.


I personally dont want to make it up in my 4B term, but I guess may be I will have no choice but to do so.


There is a interesting Biomed course I want to take "Biomedical data processing" but I dont know if there is an equivalence of such a course in UW, so I also need to find out about that. Worst case is this course dont get approved as an equivalence, so that means 7 courses in 4B...

Kinda worried right now...